Letters: Electric cars, pet treatment, gun rights

Updated 7:06 pm, Monday, January 28, 2013

Photo: Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle

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Photo: Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle

Letters: Electric cars, pet treatment, gun rights

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Build Houston

Regarding "Houston needs a comprehensive sustainability plan for its future" (Page B9, Sunday), it doesn't take a NASA rocket scientist to figured out what the fourth largest city in the U.S. needs to do.

The first priority is to start building light rail from all the entry ways into the downtown. Once corporations know their employees have a safe and economical way to get work into downtown, I suspect they would give relocation serious consideration.

The city of Houston has to take a look at the Memorial Villages. In 1950s, the small truck farmers and small business had the vision to know that if something wasn't done then Houston would annex them. The Houston mayor and city council need to wake up and develop the same vision for Houston, because if they don't in the next 20 years, no business or people will want to cross Loop 610.

The city also needs to look at what the major hospitals have accomplish over the last 10 years. Methodist, Memorial Herman, St. Luke's, even Texas Children had the vision to build locations on every major highway. When you think about it, how did we get by with only the Medical Center and a few small hospitals scattered over a huge area? The city of Houston in about 20 years behind the times.

Regarding "Charging spots fizzle, but city won't bolt" (Page A1, Friday), the article on the creation of electric vehicle charging stations around Houston was interesting but not for its overt message.

Rather, that the article mentioned the very slow adoption of electric vehicles clearly showed the folly of elected officials assuming their central planning efforts are better for us than the invisible hand of the free market.

Need I point out that electric cars have been around for a century and never caught on for precisely the reason they still occupy a niche - battery technology has proven a difficult nut to crack. Why waste taxpayer dollars promoting products that most taxpayers don't want?

More broadly, one would think our politicians would have learned from the central planning work done in the former Soviet Union. It never worked for them; it will never work for us. But, of course, that assumes our elected officials take the time to read and act on facts rather than their beliefs.

Rick Mayforth, Houston

Pet treatment

Even though I became almost physically ill reading about people dumping animals in Houston, I applaud the Chronicle for printing "Animal dumpers caught on tape" (Page A1, Thursday). These despicable people need to be held accountable and shown as an example to others who treat helpless animals worse than garbage. They are criminals and need to be treated as such.

As the article states, sterilization services are freely available to all, and anyone can surrender their unwanted pets to many places such as The Humane Society, SPCA, several no-kill rescues and many breed specific rescues.

These uncaring people took the trouble of driving their animals to these dumping grounds; they could have just as easily found a humane placement as mentioned above for their unwanted animal.